A couple of submission requests have landed in LeafSalon’s horribly overflowing in-tray. One is the very juicy Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writers Residency which gives an aspiring NZ writer the chance to work for three months on a creative writing project exploring Pacific identity, culture or history at the University of Hawai'i. As well as fulfilling their lifelong desire of becoming adept at longboarding presumably.

Valued at NZ$30,000, the residency has previously been held by Sima Urale, Victor Rodger and Tusiata Avia (who, incidentally, is doing her celebrated one-woman show ‘Wild Dogs Under My Skirt’ as part of AK07 this Thursday and Friday in Devonport, Auckland – be quick, there may be some tix left here). For more information on the residency visit the site or contact Anton Carter, Pacific Islands Arts Adviser at Creative New Zealand – tel 04-498 0729, email antonc@creativenz.govt.nz.

Second call: the fourth Bravado International Poetry Competition wants your work. This year it’s to be judged by Elizabeth Smither, a highly-respected NZ poet who has an impressive fourteen collections of poetry (plus a few excellent novels). She’ll have the job of choosing 13 prize-winning poems from the apparently hundreds usually submitted for this annual competition.

There is a ker-ching incentive: $500 for 1st, $250 for 2nd and $100 for 3rd, plus 10 highly commended prizes of $50 each. All prize-winning poems will be published in Bravado 11, due out in November. (If you want to read last year’s winning work, Bravado 8 is still available for $9.95). Any style or subject is acceptable, but poems must be no longer than 40 lines long. Your work must be original, unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere. The entry fee is $5 a poem or $10 for three entries, and the closing date for submissions is August 31st 2007.

Download a full copy of the rules from Bravado or e-mail bravado.info@xtra.co.nz. Or send an SSAE to Competition Secretary, Bravado PO Box 13 533 Grey Street, Tauranga.

Organiser Jenny Argante, says “Don’t rush. You have time to write one, two or three of the best poems of your life. Poems, that even if you don’t win the 4th Bravado International Poetry Competition, you’ll be proud to submit elsewhere.”